Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Insidious Detective

Do you have a problem with a recurrent character appearing in your stories? I do and so does some fellow Authors. Mine is the insidious detective. The insidious detective seems to try and sneak into every horror story I write. He/she comes in many forms but always seems to pop up sooner or later. It may be the nature of my stories, that by their structure require the literary prop of an investigator of some sort to make the stories work. Or it may be that certain characters take on a life of their own and demand to be written in. Several authors have addressed this very problem. Personally I think it's a phantom from the subconscious, a device that the mind constructs to make the chore of organizing a complex plot a bit easier.
Whatever the cause or origin of this recurrent literary archetype it seems to demand inclusion in many a story that I have written. Of the two books I am currently writing, the insidious detective has insisted on participation. I can only write the stories as they appear in my head and the seemingly recurrent character/s that plague me.
In one story it may be a father searching for a lost child, in another two professors trying to solve a mystery concerning a student, or outright homicide detectives investigating savage, unexplained slayings. Over and over there appears a recurrent investigator who battles the horrors and solves the mystery.
If I try to write them out the plot collapses and the story just won't work.
Am I the only one with this serial problem with my writings, besides a few I know about, or is this a widespread or common occurrence that appears in the writings of other authors whether intentional or not?

2 comments:

No insidious detectives, Rick, but I do have characters who insist on seizing the bit and running away with a perfectly organized story, thereby turning it into chaos. Then, I have to re-think all my carefully plotted plans. Fortunately, they appear to know better than I, on occasion.